Research productivity of Physicians in an African Medical School: The case for physician ccientist Training

Abstract

Introduction: Physician scientists have both advanced medical specialist and research training and are a critical link between research  and improved standards of care. Physician scientist training has existed for more than four decades in the USA, and Western European  but is almost non-existent elsewhere. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a need to develop a physician scientist  training program.

Methods –Medical doctor faculty in the faculty of health sciences of the University of Nairobi were categorized into physicians for those  with medical specialist qualifications and physician scientists if they had in addition a research degree. The two groups were compared in  terms of total number and frequency of peer reviewed publications since graduating with a medical degree, number of first author  publications, and productivity before and after their research training. Data on training was extracted from the publicly available  curriculum vitae on the institution’s website while pubmed was used to verify the number of publications up to December 2013.

Results:  Of the 235 eligible faculty, 183 [78%] were physicians and 52 [22%] were physician scientists. The median number of publications in peer  reviewed journals was 20 for physician scientists and 6 for physicians [p<0.001] which translated into 1.03 and 0.29 published papers per  person-years, respectively [Wilcoxon rank test p<0.000]. Among the 28 faculty whose research training followed medical specialization,  mean publications per year before and after research training was 0.4 compared with 2.4 [p=0.01].

Conclusion: Physician research  training increases scientific productivity.